


infatuation

by DoorIsAjar



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25583377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoorIsAjar/pseuds/DoorIsAjar
Summary: "Those mismatched eyes, with a softness in them reserved solely for Adora, eased a sigh out of the blonde girl. And before she could help herself, she was caught again in a fit of hysterics. Both her and Catra's ceaseless laughter filled the room with its high ceiling and rounded walls, and the whole while... Catra couldn't tear her eyes from Adora."Catra is enamored by Adora, and it's obvious to everyone.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 169





	infatuation

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by s5 ep8, where Catra is enamored by Adora laughing. The three sections of this fic each incorporate the way Catra looks at Adora to some degree.

**_1\. ice cream_ **

Glimmer noticed it one evening over supper.

Ice cream had been served for dessert. It was a delicacy that Catra had never even _heard_ of before.

As the bowl of yummy goodness slid in front of Catra, she plucked her spoon from the table and began prodding at it. A snicker left Adora's lips, and those mismatched eyes immediately flickered up towards the girl.

No words passed between the two, but Catra's eyes lingered, even after Adora had returned attention to her desert and shoveled two huge spoonfuls of chocolate ice cream into her mouth.

It was as though... she was hesitant to pull her gaze from Adora. As though it were a struggle to return her attention to her own scoops of vanilla gently melting in front of her.

Finally dipping her spoon into the ice cream, Catra lifted it to her nose and sniffed. And then, seemingly satisfied with the smell, slipped the spoon into her mouth.

Her face instantly lit up, eyes going wide as she contemplated how something could simultaneously be so creamy and cold and delicious all at once. It derived a bundle of laughter from everyone at the table.

But again, even with cheeks dusted red, Catra's eyes honed onto Adora, whose own cheeks had also darkened. Hers, however, weren't from embarrassment. No, hers, in contrast, had bloomed red from the incessant laughter pooling from her lips.

Both Bow and Glimmer had managed to silence themselves, but by the sound of it, Adora's giggles and cajoles were only just beginning. She hunched forward, a hand to her stomach. A snort escaped, and she glanced around the table, where she found—to her utter dismay—three pairs of eyes staring at her. Bow, Glimmer, Catra: all three utterly _silent._

"O-Oh, um—" Adora coughed into her fist, words jammed in the back of her throat. "Catra's face, i-it was, you know..." Embarrassment colored her cheeks, and words became even harder to produce.

And then laughter sounded beside her.

It was a high-pitched, short sound that Adora was familiar with after years of growing up hearing it and, to her joy, often being the cause of it.

Catra playfully prodded her in the ribs with an elbow, a smile on her lips that melted away the worry that had festered in Adora's stomach.

"Adora, you dork!"

Those mismatched eyes, with a softness in them reserved solely for Adora, eased a sigh out of the blonde girl. And before she could help herself, she was caught again in a fit of hysterics. Both her and Catra's ceaseless laughter filled the room with its high ceiling and rounded walls, and the whole while...

Catra couldn't tear her eyes from Adora.

Glimmer dipped her spoon into her own strawberry ice cream and decidedly swallowed down the jab that sat on the tip of her tongue.

She couldn't bring herself to tease the resident Horde Scum.

Not with how easily that Horse Scum could light up Adora's face like that. And not with how happy Catra's own face looked.

**_2\. dreams_ **

The second time Glimmer noticed it, there had been chaos, yelling and frantic whispers creating an odd cacophony of noise that set her nerves on fire.

She had thrown the door to the bedroom open, and it was a fleeting thought to Glimmer that—while her hands rested on her knees in an attempt to regain her breath—that she could have teleported her and Bow into the room. That thought was quickly forgotten and replaced with worry as she caught on to the words Catra mumbled from the bed.

"Adora, you're okay, you're okay." Catra held Adora to her chest, head tucked beneath her chin as she whispered consoling words into blonde hair. "I'm here, okay?" She tried purring, a noise Adora usually found soothing and embarrassingly adorable, but Catra now sounded like a boat about to putter out, a stuttering, uneven thing. It sounded just as wrong as Adora's gasps and unwanted sobs.

"Catra—" Glimmer's jaw slammed closed as Catra's head whipped around, eyes wide.

"Leave." The syllable was a broken sound, chipped from crying having wrecked vocal cords, but a shiver snaked its way down Glimmer's spine nonetheless.

Beside her, Bow took a step forward, right as he started a rebuttal. "Catra—"

"I said _leave!"_

And then Glimmer's hand was grabbing at Bow, gripping whatever she could manage to locate on the boy and teleporting them out of there.

The two remained frozen outside the door, where the faint sound of crying could just barely reach their ears.

Adora walked in a haze the following morning. A bruise beneath each eye announced to the castle the type of night that she had had. And Catra, who didn't dare wander more than a few feet from Adora—her ears remained perched high on her head, and her tail flicked sharply back and forth like a string wound too tight.

A yawn, or the move to rub at tired eyes—both minute actions caught Catra's attention. Her ears would drop flat to her head, a pained look of defeat flashing across her face, because Etheria was saved, so why did Adora still have to suffer?

Glimmer and Bow found themselves searching for the two missing pieces of the Best Friend Squad when, come dinner, they had been the only two in attendance.

Neither Catra nor Adora had been at the stables, although Swift Wind did talk Glimmer and Bow's ears off about getting a different grain for the other horses. And none of the castle staff nor General Juliet had even seen the missing pair recently enough to provide any help. The two resorted to checking their bedroom.

Glimmer opted to knock on the door, and although there was no response, she felt better about walking in announced than teleporting in _un_ announced.

The lights were off, and Glimmer almost missed the forms of her two friends on the bed. When her eyes met Catra's own, blue and yellow narrowed into cautious slits. She sat, legs dangling off the bed a couple inches from the floor. Adora's head rested in her lap, face towards Catra's stomach.

Glimmer pried open the door a tad more, enough for Bow to peer inside, and Catra hunched down an inch closer around Adora.

The three remained at a stalemate. Glimmer and Bow weren't a threat, but an irrational need to protect had come over Catra, and Glimmer and Bow weren't dumb enough to test the irrationality of it.

"She needed sleep."

Glimmer nodded from the doorway, unwilling and un-wanting to refute the obvious.

"How..." Glimmer contemplated stepping further into the room. Bow had accidentally kicked on her heel in his attempt to see better into the room, and he would _definitely_ be breathing down her neck if she stood a few inches taller.

But it was clear that Catra felt differently about having the two of them any closer to Adora.

"How is she?"

A beat of silence passed, and Catra lowered her gaze to Adora. One hand rested on Adora's hip, another in her hair. She had pulled the band to her ponytail out an hour or so ago, when she had first convinced Adora to nap, so now her hair sprayed out over Catra's knees.

She lightly scratched her claws at Adora's scalp, and a sigh languidly dragged itself from the girl's lungs in response. She pressed closer to the warmth that Catra exuded.

The softening of Catra's face did not go unnoticed by her guests.

"She's fine. Just—tired." She paused, considering her words. "It wasn't a good night."

Catra's eyes refused to pull from Adora. Face relaxed, mouth ajar with gentle snores and soundless breaths of air—it was a much better sleep compared to the previous night.

"Glimmer," Bow whispered, leaning down closer to the shorter girl. "We should go."

She agreed. Adora... was in good care with Catra.

"I-I'm sorry," Catra awkwardly interjected. "About last night." She wasn't one to apologize, but, well, she was working on _things._ Like her anger and her tendency to blow up at the drop of a hat. And last night, between the inability to soothe Adora from nothing more than dreams and the incredible annoyance at having two unwanted spectators barging into the room, Catra had fallen back on all of her old habits.

"I'm glad Adora has someone like you to take care of her."

That managed to grab Catra's attention, if only for the handful of seconds needed for Glimmer to realize that her words had surprised Catra.

And then she was back to focusing on Adora.

"Thanks, Sparkles."

**_3\. cooking_ **

Catra's chin rested in her palm, elbow propped on the counter. In front of her, Adora mixed some mess of ingredients that Catra probably couldn't name. Her mouth sat the slightest ajar in awe at this new talent that Adora possessed. If Glimmer didn't fear ruining the moment, she would have found some way to tease Catra about her obvious infatuation.

"Done!" Adora announced with a smile of satisfaction. "Now it just goes in the oven, right Glimmer?"

"Right," Glimmer responded from her spot next to Catra.

"It's already pre-heated, so just set the timer for thirty-five minutes," Bow piped in.

Catra leaped over the counter to get a closer look at this "oven." When Adora pried open the front of the machine, a wave of heat escaped, warming both girls.

"You're putting that—" Catra pointed at the metal pan in Adora's hand, "—in _there?"_

"It has to cook," Adora explained, plopping the pan inside the metal contraption.

She closed it back up, reached across the top surface, and froze.

"Uhhhhhhh, Bow?" Adora called. "Timer?"

"The arrow button."

"Right! I knew that."

And Catra couldn't help the _pfftt_ that escaped, followed by a round of snickering. "I thought you knew how to work an owen, Adora?"

"First, it's called an _oven,_ Catra, and, second, I do. I just needed a reminder, that's all." Adora folded her arms across her chest, seemingly satisfied with her comeback.

However, Catra's cajoles continued unabated. "It was the arrow, Adora, I could have guessed that!"

"Huh, really?" Adora countered. "Since you're all-knowing—" She reached across the counter and yanked a bag of flour into Catra's face, "—then what is this called?"

Carta pushed it away with her hand, a playful smirk on her lips. "Its called _floomer,_ Adora. Duh."

"Okay, you know that's so wrong—" and Adora dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Carta followed suit, and even Bow began laughing. It was because of the humor Bow found in Catra's horrible naming that Glimmer decided to play along.

"What's this one called?" Glimmer asked, this time holding up a can of sugar.

"That one's _easy,_ Sparkles. That's _shabar."_

"You cannot be serious!" Adora snorted.

"Oh, Adora, I am _so_ serious."

"What did I just put in the _owen,_ then?"

"So you admit it's called an owen!"

"What about this?" Bow asked as he pointed to the brown sugar.

"Brown shabar. Give me something hard."

"Catra," Adora began. She had to force herself to speak over the laughter. "How can we pick something hard when you haven't gotten a single one right yet?"

"I got the owen right!" Catra retorted, but her facade crumbled. Adora's laughter was too infectious, and that smile was way too bright, and the red tint to her cheeks from an overabundance of giggles and joy was something that Catra had _never_ seen in the Horde. Not like this.

"Adora, did you set the timer?" Glimmer asked.

Adora choked on the next laugh that was half a second from erupting past her lips because no, she had not set the timer.

"Adora, did you forget to press the arrow?" Catra teased.

"Yes, Catra, I forgot to press the arrow."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my fic. I hope that you have enjoyed. :)


End file.
